The term “On-Board Diagnostics” (OBD) refers to a computer-based monitoring system built into vehicles. For example, in the United States, model year 1996 and newer light-duty cars and trucks include OBD systems. The OBD system may monitor the performance of some of a vehicle's components. For example, an OBD system may provide vehicle owners with an early warning of malfunctions by way of a dashboard “Check Engine” light.
Vehicle telematics may broadly refer to monitoring of the location, movement, status, diagnostic information, and/or behavior of a vehicle. Some vehicle telematics devices are designed to be inserted into the OBD port of a vehicle. For these telematics devices, power and vehicle diagnostic information may be obtained from the OBD port. The telematics device may additionally include sensors (e.g., a GPS sensor, accelerometer, microphone, or other sensors) to obtain data relating to the operation of the vehicle. The telematics device may additionally include a mechanism to transmit data that is obtained by the telematics device to a remote location, such as a remote analytics or monitoring server.